Promising new companies can compete for the chance to take part in a boot camp and win a €25,000 prize. Organisers, f3fundit, are calling for start-ups from across the world to apply via www.f3fundit.com by May 21st and are looking for just €120 from each entrant.  Following a selection process, the top ten companies will gather in Barcelona, Spain, on June 16th and 17th. The entrepreneurs will work closely with a team of 25 experts who will both mentor them and decide which one will be crowned the next top start-up and walk away with the no-strings attached cash prize.

StartupIsrael was upgraded today (if anyone is interested, we upgraded to Drupal 6.x from 5.8). Most of the changes are infrastructure related so you won't notice much, but hopefully the site should be faster now, more stable and more secure.

If you do find any bugs, glitches or you have any comments, please let us know!

KaChing has just finished a new round of financing (led by DAG ventures), raising $7.5 million. KaChing allows you to manage a stock portfolio in the US, and share it with other users. KaChing has recruited a number of leading Geniuses and users can track those as well.

Via The Marker (hebrew)

Virtual Tweens has raised 1M$, led by Gemini partners and private investors. Virtal Tweens runs an educational virtual world for kids, called Ekoloko.

Via TheMarker (Hebrew)

Contigo (previously WeFi) raised 10M$ in their second round, from Pitango and Gemini. WeFi is a Wi-Fi social network service. They say they recently reached 30M$ registered users.

Via TheMarker (hebrew)

5Min, the Videopedia site, raised 7.5M$ from several VCs, led by Globespan capital. 5Min says they have over 100,000 videos, watched by over 200M users a month. They also have 'significant' revenue from ads.

Via Globes (hebrew)